Painful Memories
by Feldir
Summary: After successfully bringing back Sasuke, Naruto becomes more introverted and trains even harder then before. NaruHina pairing.
1. The Catalyst

Naruto slowly opened his eyes and yawned. It was already noon and he had been asleep for almost 24 hours now. He thought back to the events that occurred during the previous day.. 

_Naruto stood there upon the cliff facing Sasuke. The piercing sound of the chidori combined with the humming of raw power produced by the rasengan was almost deafening._

_"I thought it wouldn't have to come to this." Naruto said, shooting a glare at Sasuke filled with contempt and sadness._

_The sudden change in Naruto's mood didn't go by unnoticed by Sasuke as he hesitated for a brief moment. After all that had been said during their drawn out battle Naruto had completely given up hope on Sasuke and all that remained was to fulfill his promise and bring him back home to Konoha._

_"I will do anything it takes to gain the power I need to kill Itachi" stated Sasuke flatly._

_Naruto crouched down slightly and hissed out "I promised Sakura that I'd bring you back. I won't let you become like your brother." having slight troubles speaking due to his fangs protruding from the corners of his mouth._

_At the mention of his brother Sasuke just snapped. Screaming loudly he charged at Naruto, who did the same._

_"Naruto!"_

_"Sasuke!"_

_No longer having any doubts about hurting his former friend, Naruto pumped the rasengan with every ounce of chakra he could muster, slamming it straight into the chidori. It wasn't a match of strength.. The chidori simply dissipated as if it had never existed in the first place. Naruto let go of the rasengan and slammed his fist charged to the limit with chakra straight through Sasuke's shoulder. The last thought on Sasuke's mind before passing out from blood loss was 'How can the dobe be so strong..'_

_Gasping for air Naruto almost passed out right there from exhaustion. Picking up Sasuke he started the long trek back home._

_On the way he met up with the rest of the team that were still conscious; Shikamaru, Kiba, Lee and the sand trio. As they backtracked their way they met up with a team of medic-nins from Konoha that were dispatched to assist them and received information that Chouji and Neji were already being transported back to Konoha for emergency treatment. Slowly making their way home the village gates soon came into view._

_Sitting on top of the wall by the gate were two worried kunoichi, waiting for their friends to return. Sakura and Hinata had been sitting there for the past few hours in hopes of seeing the team's return. Sakura slowly stood up and said in a sad voice to Hinata, "I have to go home now or my parents will be worried. I don't think they'll return today". Hinata sighed and nodded then said "I'll stay for a while longer--" then she caught sight of somebody wearing an orange jacket coming out from between the trees with a group of people trailing behind him. "Naruto" Hinata whispered before she leapt off the wall and ran towards the group._

_Naruto raised his line of sight and saw through blurred vision that somebody was approaching. 'I must be worse off than I thought.. I can't even see straight any longer'. As she got closer she called out "Naruto-kun!" before coming to a slow stop in front of him. "Hi..Hinata..?" Naruto took a few breaths trying to focus his vision. Naruto suddenly heard another voice speak up "What happened to Sasuke-kun? What have you done to Sasuke, Naruto?" stepping into view was a clearly upset Sakura._

_Naruto set Sasuke down on the ground then turned to Sakura, "I kept my promise, Sakura-chan" he gave her a tired smile "I brought him back" only to be greeted with a fierce punch to the jaw from Sakura. "What the hell did you do to him you bastard? Were you trying to kill him?" Sakura screamed, "I hate you!" then she tried to hit him again only to have her fist caught by Naruto._

_'Even now she insults me..'_

_At last his vision cleared and he locked eyes with Sakura, crimson meeting Emerald making her gasp in shock._

_"I brought back your precious Sasuke."_

_Sakura spat at him and said, "Let me go you monster! You tried to kill Sasuke-kun!". The words uttered by Sakura broke Naruto's heart. He couldn't believe that a person that he had trusted for so long would so easily call him a monster. Naruto sent a weak punch connecting with her jaw sending her flying into the wall, knocking her unconscious. Naruto then turned to the chuunin gate guards that were approaching and told them "I suggest you go get Tsunade-sama before the traitor dies of blood loss" before finally letting go of the Kyuubi's chakra and falling down face forward unconscious from exhaustion._

Lying there in his bed he thought about all the events that had transpired over and over in his head until he heard a low growl.

**"So you finally woke up, kit."**

---

Well, that's it for chapter one. I'm sure there's plenty of both spelling and grammatical errors as I'm tired as hell and English is not my primary language. Heck, by the time I wake up I'll propably realize how bad this chapter is and delete it again :P


	2. Shocking News

Ok, so the last chapter ended up being pretty short. This chapter will be a bit longer and have some plot development. 

---

**"So you finally woke up, kit."**

Naruto froze.

_'What the.. Kyuubi?'_

He hurriedly scanned his surroundings in hopes of finding the source of the voice.

**"That won't do, kit. As much as I'd love to be there and eat you, I'm still in here."**

Naruto paused and looked down at the seal on his stomach.

"Then how the hell can I hear you? I must still be asleep or something.."

**"Not quite. You see, after channeling my chakra over such an extended period of time, there were some changes in the workings of the Hakke-part of your seal."**

"Hakke-what?"

**"Be quiet mortal and let me enlighten you. To put it simply, your body is starting to grow accustomed to having my chakra run through its coils and since your body now accepts it instead of repelling it the seal changed a bit. I don't expect of you to understand this, but after the fourth and eight tangents of the Hakke re-aligned themselves, we've slowly started fusing. Although I don't like it, there's nothing I can do to stop it."**

"Fusing? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON KYUUBI?!"

**"I'd suggest you refrain from shouting out my human-given name, I can hear your thoughts just fine. There are some rather.. intriguing side-effects from our initial fusion. I hear your thoughts, I see what you see, I hear what you hear. While you were asleep I noticed some other changes. Some will become apparent right away, while others will be revealed to you in due time."**

_'Okay.. Now, why are you telling me these things? And what do you mean by human-given name?'_

**"Simply put. I've decided to start training you. As you might remember, if you die then I die. I can't have that happening. So while I remain in your body, I want that body to be strong enough to be able to survive. And regarding my name, you wouldn't be able to pronounce my true name as it involves several differently pitched growls and two distinct smells released from the glands by the root of the tail."**

_'Whoa.. that was unexpected.'_

**"Some of the changes in your body intrigue me, so if you're not going back to sleep I suggest you get your ass out of bed."**

_'Shut up you bastard, I was about to.'_

**"Go to your mirror. There's something you need to see. Your muscles will most likely be sore for a while due to your overexposure to my chakra."**

_'Ramen first. You second.'_

**"Impudent child.."**

Naruto slowly dragged himself out of his bed, his muscles screaming in protest for every inch he attempted to move. After dressing himself he walked over to the cup-board and pulled out some instant ramen and set some water to cook. Sitting there waiting he went over the events again and came to the conclusion that the villagers finally would have to acknowledge him.

**"I wouldn't be so sure of that."**

Tuning out the Kyuubi's voice he proceeded to slurp down his breakfast and worked his way towards the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror he shot at the Kyuubi, 'Well, now what?'.

**"Channel a small amount of chakra into your eyes."**

Naruto did so and gasped in surprise as the eyes of Kyuubi stared back at him.

**"This is one of the.. side-effects that I've taken notice of so far. You can utilize my sense of vision if you channel chakra into your eyes. Although it cannot see a great radius and see through objects like the Byakuugan, it holds many properties of the Sharingan. Using these eyes you force your body to release adrenaline, therefore heightening the rate of which your nerves process information."**

_'Uh.. What does that mean?'_

**":sigh: You can see things in slow-motion. And just from that question from you, I've decided the first part of your training. Anyway, for normal people, releasing adrenaline for more than just a short period of time would damage their nerves but since you have my healing capabilities that won't be a problem. The other aspects of the eye are that you can copy all forms of jutsu, you can see through genjutsu and there's also a form of Doujutsu available to you that I will teach you later."**

_'Hey.. this is kind of cool'_ thought Naruto while waving his hand in front of his face.

**"We'll talk more later"**. Right after the Kyuubi said that there was a knock on Naruto's door making him jump.

_'Oi! Stupid fox, don't scare me like that!'_

The kyuubi merely chuckled in reply.

Proceeding to open his door Naruto found Iruka on his doorstep.

"Iruka!"

"Naruto, I see you finally woke up. Tsunade-sama wants you to report in to the administration building. There was something she wanted to talk to you about."

"Alright, I'll be there in a few."

---

Although a crappy place to end the chapter it'll have to do. Coffee calls. I'll probably upload another chapter later today. I was shocked to see that I actually got reviews for the tiny first chapter I uploaded, so I guess I'll keep on writing on this story.


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